


i hear we live with what we run from

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 23:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16902030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: The Doctor can never stop running from what he's left behind. | A tiny DW drabble written many moons ago on LJ.





	i hear we live with what we run from

He was so old now. An age and people nearly forgotten by the cosmos was hidden behind those heavy brown eyes. A casual glance would reveal nothing of what lay beneath, all of those memories, that incalculable knowledge. A sun burned at the center of his being, ancient and implacable, at times unrelenting and harsh in its glare. 

His hearts were heavy in his chest. How many times had they broken over the centuries? He covered them with bandages made of lopsided smiles and manic technobabble, slapped the pieces together with rubber cement and continued on his way. Never stopping, rarely pausing, a part of him afraid to look over his shoulder at _all_ of the places he’d been, the people he’d failed, the hands that had slipped from his and into the chaos. 

How many tears had he shed? How many tears did he have left, in those old eyes of his? The losses of nine hundred years were sometimes too much for even a Time Lord to bear. He would dream of a simple, calm life in a grounded home — if he would allow himself to dream. It was better to continue running; dreaming would rob him of his conviction, dreaming would make him remember the exact feel of her hand in his, dreaming would recall the way she would wiggle into their hugs, her legs swinging wildly in the air as her arms tightened around his neck.

She was made of stardust and glitter now. Whispers of her clung to the fabric of the universe, impossible to brush away. The words she had created and scattered surprised him at the oddest turns: in graffiti in the subways, advertisements on billboards, a chorus in a song. She was no longer a part of his life, but of his memories. Tucked away in the vastness of his mind. 

But even that did not protect him when he found the bracelet under the console, dropped there one afternoon when the clasp broke in her excitement to see him. Or when rummaging in a trunk uncovered a sketch of her, sitting on a half-fallen wall, done by da Vinci’s quick hands as she looked up at the fullness of the sky, unaware of the artist’s attention. 

He knew he was cursed, and he knew he was blessed. It was the paradox of eternity — ever doomed to leave behind those who meant the most to him, leaving bits of himself with each one, while pushing forward into the brightness of a new day, a new adventure, a new life to brighten and improve. 

It hurt, every time, leaving something behind as he ran ahead to rebuild himself. And he knew the biggest piece of the Doctor had been left with the girl that burned like the sun, a girl who by any other name would still be the brightest star in his sky.


End file.
